In this exclusive interview with senior journalist and author Arun Sinha, Mahipal Singh, former accounts officer (lekha prabhari) at the Ram Temple Trust in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, breaks his silence and provides a fearless and candid account of corruption in the management and maintenance of accounts at the temple, the construction of which helped the right-wing, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent come to power in New Delhi.
Mahipal Singh, who worked at the Ram Temple during 2021-22, provides an eye-witness about unimaginable money-making rackets that were masterminded by individuals associated with the temple trust. He says he personally saw theft of cash and offerings of jewellery made by pilgrims when he was assigned the responsibility of counting officer (ganana padadhikari) by the trustees. One day he suspected that more bundles of currency notes had been put in a box (that was to be sent to the bank) that had been mentioned in the deposit slip. This was sought to be explained as a mistake.
He also saw that the offerings of rings, ear-rings and bracelets made by male and female pilgrims that were dropped in the donation boxes were not accounted for at all. Nobody knew where the boxes were taken. Mahipal Singh reported all these goings-on to the three officers of the Ram Temple Trust who shared the management and administration of the temple’s affairs: Champat Rai, General Secretary, Anil Mishra, Trustee and Gopal Rao, Special Invitee to the Trust. They listened to what he had to say but took no action. On the contrary, Gopal Rao chided him for raising the issue of theft of donations as he was supposedly the “boss” in the counting room.
Mahipal Singh was asked to leave his job at Ayodhya and return to his home in Kota, Rajasthan. In this, the first part of the interview, Mahipal Singh speaks of other money-making rackets going on. He specifically names trustee Anil Mishra and Tinnu Yadav, who was close to Champat Rai, for misusing their office to make money. His revelations raises questions about the effectiveness of the Special Investigative Team (SIT) set up by the Uttar Pradesh government to probe the scandal.
The former accountant of the Ram Temple trust says he had in the past insisted on the formation of an SIT and wants it to accept his submissions as evidence. Mahipal Singh says he has been a loyal worker of the RSS worker who has today been virtually “ex-communicated” by the Sangh for revealing the truth to journalists running YouTube channels such as Abhishek Upadhyaya (Top Secret) and Sanket Upadhyaya (RedMike). This is his most detailed interview till date. Wait for the second part of the interview.
